Poor Buggers are taking a battering off newcastle one freightliner grounded and another to follow. Mother nature is kickin some ass heh heh :

Crew rescued from grounded ship, more vessels in trouble

* Tracy Ong * June 08, 2007

A DRAMATIC rescue operation is underway after a 30,000-tonne bulk carrier ran aground in rough seas and gale-force winds off Newcastle this morning amid fears several other vessels also may become stricken.

Another ship, the Sea Confidence, was desperately trying to stay away from the coast about 0.8 nautical miles off Stockton beach, but was expected to run aground shortly.

"It's got its engines at full speed trying to get away from the coastline but it's being dragged towards the coastline and will run aground, we expect soon," NSW Ports Minister Joe Tripodi said.

There were concerns for at least another two ships off the coast, with waves of up to 17 metres, Mr Tripodi said.

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Both ships were less than a nautical mile off Stockton Beach, north of Nobbys Beach, she said.

Also in distress off the same beach is the Coral Emerald. It is about 2.8 nautical miles offshore and its anchor is dragging due to the swell, she said.

Meanwhile, helicopters are attempting to airlift 20 crew members from the stranded vessel, the Pasher Bulker, but wild seas in excess of 10 metres and south-easterly winds of 40 knots are hampering the rescue effort.

Some crew, understood to be from the Phillipines and Korean, have been successfully airlifted from the 225m vessel with no reports of injuries, NSW Maritime spokesman Neil Patchett said.

Contingencies are being put in place to minimise any pollution from the Panamas-flagged bulker, but wild conditions are preventing rescuers from putting a boom around the stricken vessel to stop 700 tonnes of fuel, 38 tonnes of diesel and 400 tonnes of lubricant understood to be onboard from leaking out.

POSTED: 12:43 pm MDT June 20, 2007 COLUMBIA, S.C. -- Police in Columbia, S.C., have a mystery on their hands. How did a naked couple fall to their deaths from the roof of a downtown office building?

Police said the bodies were found on the road by a passing cabdriver early Wednesday morning.

Clothing was discovered on the roof, about 50 feet above the street. And that leads authorities to suspect the man and woman, in their early 20s, may have been having sex. Their identities were not released.

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There are no signs of foul play a police sergeant said it's "too early to rule out anything."

Police said they got the call around 5 p.m. Thursday. Both of the girl's feet were detached at the ankle.

According to MetroSafe dispatch supervisors, the girl was riding the Superman Tower of Power, which is 177 feet tall and drops riders at 54 mph. According to Kentucky Kingdom, the girl was injured when the ride malfunctioned.

"We seen the cable break loose soon as it got to the top on the right-hand side," said Chris Williams, who witnessed the event.

Treva Smith said the cable snapped again as the ride descended.

"The people on the ride just came and hit the ground," Smith said.

Williams' daughter Amber said she gave up her seat to the 13-year-old and was sitting on the other side of the ride. Williams rushed toward the ride to find his daughter.

As Smith raced to find members of her group she said she made a gruesome discovery.

"When I got up there, the lady, she was just sitting there and she didn't have no legs," Smith said. "She didn't have no legs at all. She was just calm, probably in shock from everything."

Smith said she saw no blood and the girl wasn't crying but the same couldn't be said for many who witnessed the incident on the ride formerly known as the Hellevator.

"My son's over there tripping out, man," Williams said. "You want to come to a park and feel safe, you know? We've got season passes. We're not coming back for sure."

But other visitors aren't so worried.

"Every park, one in a million maybe something happens," park visitor Kenneth Lay said. "But I have no fear."

On-scene EMT personnel transported the girl to a hospital. As of 10:34 p.m. Thursday there was no word on her condition.

The ride was shut down and will remain so until a full investigation has been completed.

Interesting to see the domino effect that caused it to completely collapse, rather than just a section. Each support structure buckled in the same way. It V shaped at the centre as it fell, just enough that the join point of the V was able to reach and hit the next support structure to its left, causing that to buckle in exactly the same way. This continued until the bridge fully collapsed.

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